There was some local interest in the finals of the Belgian Open today in the mixed doubles with Wouter Claes and Natalie Descamps making the final against Heather Olver and Marcus Ellis of England. The seeds had toppled in this tournament in all events, leaving only one top seed playing on finals day.

First on court with the women’s doubles, with Emma Mason making her comeback from a serious achilles injury reaching the final with her English partner Samantha Ward against Japanese pair Misaki Matsutomo and Ayaka Takahashi. They shared the opening two sets before the Japanese pair proved to be too strong in the third to take the match 21-13.

Marcus Ellis and Peter Mills played against the only top seed left in any draw, Ruud Bosch and Koen Ridder of Holland. The top seeds took the opening set 30-28, with both couples having five chances apiece to win the first set and then wrapped up the second 21-12 to claim the title.

The Men’s Singles provided the other seed against seed encounter on the last day, with German Marc Zweibler seeded second against seventh seeded Christian Lind Thomsen of Denmark. The match was a tale of three sets, with Zweibler dominating the opening set, before the Dane levelled the match in equally impressive fashion. The match turned at 3-3 in the deciding set, with Zweibler going on a 9-point run which was too big a gap for Lind Thomsen to catch back up.

Misaki Matsutomo played in her second final of the day against second seeded Yao Jie of Holland in the Women’s Singles. Both players took one of the two opening sets but 21 points to 14. The third set was a similar affair to the Men’s final, with Matsutomo leading 10-6 the dutch second seed won 8 consecutive points to turn the match in her favour, eventually winning 21-16 in the third.

The big local hope was in the Mixed Doubles, with second seeds Claes and Descamps against Heather Olver and Marcus Ellis, playing in his second final fo the day. The first set was dominated by the English duo, with the Belgians never having a lead in the opening set, losing it 21-9. The second set was a far more competitive affair at the start of the set, before the English couple stretched out another lead. Claes and Descamps managed to save the match at 20-17 down to make it 20-20. They manufactured a game point at 23-22, before losing the next three points to the unseeded English couple.

The next challenge event in the EBU calendar is in Bulgaria on October 1-4.

Eddie Smith

Eddie has been a writer for BadmintonLife.com since June 2009 covering the Major BWF events and Super Series events. Previous worked for The Guardian newspaper and was also featured in the New York Times during the London 2012 Olympics.